The Ku Klux Klan in Reconstruction North Carolina: Methods of Madness in the Struggle for Southern Dominance

The Ku Klux Klan was known to be active in certain parts of North Carolina, but Klan activity and other white supremacist group activity became prominent in many counties of the state in the post-Reconstruction years. Once Union soldiers were no longer occupying the south, white supremacist groups began to dominate the landscape in the south and started a violent campaign to disenfranchise, lynch, and terrorize African Americans. When the Union soldiers left after Reconstruction, suddenly African Americans found themselves in very desperate and dangerous situations, sometimes life was even more tragic and terrifying than the pre-Civil War slavery years. The drastically negative changes that took place in these African American's lives help modern historians understand why and how violence and disenfranchisement protracted the rights, civil liberities, and safety of African Americans in the south until well into the 20th cnetury when the Civil Rights Movement began to gain a foothold in the U.S.